President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he hoped Turkey's offensive against Kurdish militia in northern Syria would be completed in "a very short time", as Turkish ground troops entered Syria.

"God willing, this operation will be finished in a very short time," Erdogan told supporters in the northwestern Turkish province of Bursa after Turkey launched the campaign to remove the Syrian Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara views as a terror group, from the region of Afrin.